Fallout: The Story of Darren
by Matthew Givens
Summary: Darren and his girlfriend, Jane, escape from Vault 43 and encounter dangers outside of the remains of St. Louis.


"Hurry, Darren, we don't have much time!" Jane said to her boyfriend, as they were trying to escape Vault 43. "Hold on, HOLD ON!" he shouted to her, firing his stolen assault rifle on the vault security forces. He didn't want to kill them, just hold them off so he and Jane could escape. Escape the Vault, escape the Overseer and all of his bullshit.

He made it to the control panel with Jane. Darren punched in the access code and pulled the lever that opened the big cog door that seals off Vault 43 from the rest of the world. The nuclear wasteland that it is.

In the year 2077, World War III started between China and the U.S.A. It lasted only three hours, when the two countries dropped nuclear bombs on each other and started Armageddon. But, that wasn't the end of humanity. The U.S.A. had created a numerous amount of underground fallout shelters for the upcoming nuclear apocalypse. And, from then to the current year of 2267, people have lived in these shelters.

"Hurry, you fools! They're escaping!" the distant voice of security chief Polanski echoed down the hallway. That mindless zombie of the overseer.

At that time, the cog door screeched across the floor and rolled to the side. Darren and Jane ran through the doorway, into the passage that led outside. Polanskis' security force arrived at the doorway. "Go get them!" Polanski commanded the other officers. But they refused. "I'm not going out there!" one of the officers said. Darren smiled and thought to himself, _Seems as if the overseers own bs has backfired on him; he scares everyone about not going out that even his security forces won't try to catch us out there._ "Close the door, then! They will not survive out there!" Polanski ordered. The officers had no problem with obeying that order, and rushed to seal the cog door. Darren's smile faltered. _This is it, no turning back now. _

They turned to watch the cog door roll, then screech across the floor, then hiss air at them, proving that it had been sealed air tight, leaving them looking at the giant 43 painted on the door.

"Are you sure about this, Darren?" Jane asked. "Yeah," Darren said. Jane smiled, reassured by Darren's voice. "I hope" he said to himself. Jane heard him, and her expression faltered. "Don't worry Jane," Darren told her, "Just think, we're free now! Free of the overseer and his crap. We can do what we want, be who we want to be! No more Overseer, no more G.O.A.T occupation's, we're free!"

They turned and walked into the wasteland.

The first thing they noticed was that they were blinded by the sunlight. After years of being underground, they were never used to this much light. They shielded their eyes for a moment with their hands, then followed what was once a highway towards what was once St. Louis. They passed one big green sign that read, "St. Louis, 10 miles". Later, they passed a sign that read, "St. Louis, 5 miles."

"We must be getting closer to St. Louis," Jane said. "Yeah, I guess," Darren responded.

When they reached a sign that read, "St. Louis, 1 mile", Jane saw something. "Hey, that's a person! Hey! HEY!" She screamed. But, Darren had a bad feeling about it.

The person, a man, approached them. "Hey, can you help us?" Jane asked. But the man had a different plan in mind. He pointed an assault rifle at them and told them, "Drop your weapons! Get on your knees and put your hands on your head!"

They obliged, dropping their guns and getting on their knees. "Hey, Ratchet, come 'ere! I found some more wanderers!" Another man, whom they assumed was this "Ratchet" approached, along with two other guys, all armed with assault rifles.

"Well, well, looks like we caught us some vault dwellers. Goddamn good job, CC. Search them, and take whatever they have, Screwdriver," Ratchet said. "Screwdriver" ran up to them and patted them down. He found a couple of stimpacks that Jane had on her, and he found Darren's lucky switchblade.

"Is this all? Damn, the others usually carry more. Oh well. Kill the man, we'll keep the girl as enterta-" but he was cut off by gunfire. Some huge, yellow, muscular, mutated people had opened fire on Ratchet and his little gang, causing the perfect distraction for Jane and Darren.

"Come on, Jane, let's go!" He took Jane's hand, and they ran towards the city.

They ran the rest of the way there, all the way to the outskirts of the city.

"Darren, slow down. I'm not feeling so good."

They stopped, and she automatically reached down to her side. Fearing the worst, Darren set her on the ground, and gently moved her hand. In all the confusion, she had been caught in the cross fire, and had been bleeding for awhile. Running a mile didn't help with that.

"Hang on, Jane! I can help, just, hang on, please!" If they still had those stimpacks, he could have healed her in a jiffy. He tried to the best of his abilities to tend to her wounds, but, ultimately, he realized he was just prolonging her pain, her death.

"Darren, don't worry. I'll wait for you, on the other side," Jane said. "Please, Jane, you can't go. You can't leave me!" He picked her up in his arms. "Darren, I just want you to know, I… I… l-l-lov-lov-v-v-e, …, you…." As soon as she finished she collapsed in his hands, and didn't move. "No. No, no, no, NOOOOOO!" He screamed into the air.

He buried her in the only patch of somewhat grass in St. Louis. The place he now considered a living hell, almost making him want to go back to Vault 47. He wandered around St. Louis for days, rummaging amongst the rubble, walking down the streets, scavenging through the empty stores and buildings, trying to find the people that killed Jane, the love of his life. Ratchet, and those giant yellow people.

One day, three days after Jane had died, to be exact, he was walking down a street when he saw a beast, 10 feet tall, walking along the street. It was a hellish, demonic thing. Humanoid in shape, but with an elongated face with razor sharp teeth, long talons on its hands and feet, strong, powerful legs, and big ram-like horns on top of its head. Fortunately for Darren, the beast did not see him, for the beast had his back turned to him.

It looked like a man-killing beast, but Darren didn't care, he didn't care about anything anymore.

"Hey! Hey you! Ugly! Come here! Kill me! KILL ME!" he shouted at it. It turned, saw him, and, on instinct, ran towards Darren with surprisingly fast speed. As it neared Darren, it pulled its arm back and was about to hack Darren in half when its head sporadically exploded.

He turned around, and saw a large group of people wearing what he knew to be power armor. They looked like some sort of military, trying to help people in the wastes.

"Are you alright there, son?" a weathered, but strong, looking man asked Darren. Darren was silent; the encounter with the beast shook him a little.

"Most people would not have done what you just did in the face of a Deathclaw, but you, you my son have some nerves. We could use nerves like that in the Brotherhood of Steel."

He was about to ask them who they were when one soldier shouted, "Super Mutant!" and one of the yellow people that killed Jane appeared. Darren felt a wave of anger flow over him, and was happy when it fell to the ground, dead.

"Who shot it?" one of the soldiers asked. "I don't know," another soldier replied. "Raiders," someone behind Darren said, and Ratchet and his gang appeared.

Even more anger before flowed over Darren and the weathered man saw it. "Paladin Walker, give this man a gun." Walker gave him his sniper rifle, and immediately Darren opened fire on Ratchet, and the rest of the Brotherhood of Steel soldiers followed suit.

Once they had all been killed, the weathered man turned to him once again and said, "Forgive me, in all this excitement I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Star Paladin Lyons and yours is…" "Darren" "Ah, Darren, so good to meet you. Well, as I was saying before, we could really use you in the Brotherhood of Steel. If you would like to join-" "Yes." Darren had cut him off as soon as he asked. Although at first he didn't know who they were, but if they were against whoever killed Jane, _well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend_, he thought. "Good, Darren. Good." Lyons smiled at him and said, "Gunny, outfit Darren with power armor."

Darren would end up spending the rest of his life with the BOS. He traveled far with them, from St. Louis, to Windy City (Chicago), to the Pitt (Pittsburg), to the Capital Wastes (Washington D.C. and surrounding areas). They finally settled in the Capital Wastes where they set up a permanent BOS base, in a building formerly known as the "Pentagon" now renamed the "Citadel". The main purpose of the BOS was to collect old pre-war tech, but then Star Paladin (now Elder) Lyons had realized what bad was happening he had shifted their purpose to help the citizens and eradicate the Raiders and Super Mutants. Darren didn't mind that, just so long as he got to kill as many of the people that killed Jane.

He would die in 2077, in a battle between the BOS and the Enclave (a faction of the US Government). The purpose was to retake the water purifier in the Jefferson memorial that would be used to eventually purify all the radiated water, since all the water had been irradiated by the nuclear war. Darren was part of the elite BOS Squadron known as the "Lyons Pride" led by Sarah Lyons, Elder Lyons' daughter. The Pride made it to the purifier, but Darren was shot as soon as he entered the Jefferson Memorial. His Power Armor had been damaged, and the bullet had ricochet off the wall into the damaged part of his armor. His dying words were, "I'm glad, because I get to see Jane again. I've been keeping her waiting for all this time, and now, we can be together again."


End file.
